Venue hopes to cash in on Crown Heights

Classon Avenue between Pacific and Dean Streets in Crown Heights
Classon Avenue between Pacific and Dean Streets in Crown Heights

Crown Heights seems to have struck a chord with residential buyers and hipster friendly businesses alike. And a new music venue, dubbed Friends and Lovers, is betting that the quickly gentrifying area is ready for a taste of Williamsburg-style nightlife.

Set to open in November on an industrial block of Classon Avenue between Pacific and Dean Streets – and apparently across the street from a shop that sells live goats and chickens – the venue will cater to the neighborhood’s emerging around-the-clock culture.

The entrepreneurs behind the venue are Eric Sosa and Diana Mora, both resident of Crown Heights, who insist that the area remains starved for live indie music, despite the fact that more than 50 new businesses have opened in the neighborhood since 2008, according to Brooklyn Paper.

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“We were living in Crown Heights and we thought that there was really nowhere to see live music,” Sosa told Brooklyn Paper. “There are bars that do music, but there’s nowhere to go seven days a week.”

And with rents speedily climbing in the up-and-coming neighborhood – rents that are even driving out newcomers – it is likely that still more businesses will flock to the hot Brooklyn nabe. [Brooklyn Paper] —Christopher Cameron